Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I wish to begin by thanking you to join us for the "Colorful Yunnan – Showcase for Global Development", an event launched today, to mark the 2022 UN Chinese Language Day. I also wish to thank Yunnan and Deputy Governor Zeng Yan for their great support.

At present, while the humanity is still plagued by the COVID pandemic, we see conflict raging in certain places. The peace and development, as the major them of the times, is under serious challenges, and the world we are living is now experiencing an unprecedented danger of division and confrontation. Against this backdrop, it is more important than ever for humankind to strengthen its solidarity and cooperation by going beyond ideological differences in promotion of the harmonious coexistence of civilizations. So, it is most relevant for us to mark this year's UN Chinese Language Day.

Chinese is the most widely spoken language in the world and carries a profound heritage and substance. The United Nations began to create its Chinese Language Day in 2010 to celebrate the world's linguistic and cultural diversity. This is a very important move, as diversity calls for interaction among civilizations, which, in turns, promotes mutual learning, and their subsequent development. It is our hope that, in marking this year’s Chinese Language Day, we could inject new vitality and impetus to such efforts to demonstrate the values of world diversity and human solidarity at an exceptional time. And we should firmly practice true multilateralism, in promotion of global security and development.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

Yunnan, as you know, is located in the southwestern part of China, with not only the largest number of ethnic minorities, but also splendid Chinese cultural heritage culture. The Naxi Dongba symbol is the only "living" hieroglyphic scripts in the world. The beauty of Yunnan lies not only in its beautiful mountains and rivers, but more in its remarkable achievement in green ecology and sustainable development, the harmony and unity among its ethnic groups, as well as in its open and inclusive development.

Deputy Governor Zeng Yan will shortly make a special presentation on Yunnan, to be followed by a wonderful, unique cultural show, which, I hope, will give you a better understanding on the colorful and splendid Yunnan.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

Yunnan is a just snapshot of China and it is an important chapter in the overall China Dream. Through this window, we can see China’s remarkable achievement in recent years in the light of its new development philosophy, especially:

-- China has achieved sustained steady and healthy economic growth at a medium to high speed. China's economy has remained resilient despite many challenges posed by the COVID pandemic.

-- China has achieved common development that benefits all people. In pursuing the policy of “People First” and “Leaving No One Behind”, it has won the hard battle against the absolute poverty and completed the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects on schedule.

-- China has achieved a green and low-carbon sustainable development. By so doing, it has also contributed to the building-up of global ecological civilization and the "green recovery" of the post-pandemic world.

-- China has achieved a high-quality innovative development. Its innovation-driven development has continued to promote the optimization and upgrading of industries and the development of frontier technologies and emerging fields such as the digital economy and AI. And China's overall national innovation capacity ranking rose to 12th in the world in 2021.

-- And China has also injected stability and certainty into the global economy, by helping secure the global industrial and supply chains and safeguard the multilateral trading system.

Excellencies, ladies and Gentlemen,

Development and security are two major tasks before us. They always represent the greatest common denominator of all countries and they are the master key to all problems no matter how world evolves.

The Global Development Initiative and Global Security Initiative the Chinese President Xi Jinping pronounced are formula China has worked out in addressing the above challenging tasks while gauging the prevailing situation of the times. The Global Security Initiative especially gives clear answers to the questions of the times as to "what kind of security concept does the world need and how can countries achieve common security”, in an effort to contribute Chinese wisdom to address the human peace deficit.

Both Initiatives are also China’s clear undertaking of its firm support of the central role of UN system in safeguarding world peace and security, as well as in promoting global development. China, for its part, will firmly remain as a builder of world peace, contributor of global development and defender of international order.

The two global initiatives are also closed linked with the important issues on the Vienna multilateral agenda, such as industrial development, peaceful uses of nuclear energy and outer space, international cooperation on energy, poverty alleviation, drug control, and arms control and non-proliferation.

The Chinese Permanent Mission will work together with all our colleagues here in an intensified effort to promote a stronger, greener and healthier global development and a common, integrated, cooperative and sustainable global security.

I wish this year's Chinese Language Day a success!